ABN Amro, FNB International Banking, Standard Chartered Bank, Svenska Handelsbanken and Westpac have signed up as providers of nostro data to Cable & Wireless' Real Time Nostro (RTN) service, while 10 more banks are in a pilot phase as users.
The pilot users include Affin Bank, Maybank and Union Bank of Taiwan.
The latest announcement brings the total number of banks who have agreed to provide currency information to 17, with nine of these providing live data enabling users to gain real-time access to over a hundred currencies.
Banks to have signed up as providers to the service during the last year include Bank of America, providing data on its US dollar accounts and RBC Financial Group, the largest inter-bank clearer of Canadian dollars, which is also using the service.
"The agreement to provide data into the RTN service is complementary to our existing reporting service for clients and widens our offering," says Joerg Pinkernell, head of financial institutions services at ABN Amro. "The importance of real-time information is growing, enabling our clients and us to achieve reductions in risk and improve overall efficiencies and liquidity management functions. In addition, this decision has enabled us to further leverage our investment in SwiftNet, ensuring cleaner and faster delivery of the transaction data."
Illustrating the potential value for user banks, Ian Toone, managing director, global financial institutions, RBC Financial Group, says: "We are currently using Cable & Wireless RTN through our CLS control branch in London. At the same time we are looking into other areas of the organisation – reconciliations, investigations – as well as the traditional groups with liquidity management responsibilities to see where it can add value."